"Mr Holland?--Guy Holland? Oh, yes, I have good cause for remembering him."
"Mr Holland has spoken of me to you?"
"Oh! You are that Miss Broad! I have pleasure in wishing you good morning."
Miss Bewicke walked off as if, so far as she was concerned, the matter was at an end; but so abrupt a termination to the interview the other would not permit.
"I am sorry to detain you, Miss Bewicke, but, as I have said, I wish to speak to you."
"Yes. What do you wish to say?"
"Can I not speak to you in private?"
"By all means." Miss Bewicke led the way into a sitting-room. As soon as they were in, and the door closed, before the other had a chance to open her lips, she herself began the ball. "Miss Broad, before you speak, there is something which I wish to say to you. You incited Mr Guy Holland to commit, last night, a burglary upon my premises."
If she expected the other to show signs of confusion, or to attempt denial, she was mistaken. Miss Broad did not flinch.
"I did."
"You admit it?"
"I do."
"Are you aware that in so doing you were guilty of a criminal action?"
"As to that I know nothing, and care less."
"I have only to send for a policeman to have you sentenced to a term of imprisonment."
"I understand how it is you have been so successful on the stage. You really are an excellent actress. You bear yourself as if you were the injured party, while all the time you know very well that it was precisely because you had robbed him that I advised him to despoil you of your booty."
"You are perfectly aware that that is false."
"On the contrary, I am perfectly aware that it is true. Where is Mr Holland? Is he here with you?"
"Miss Broad!"
"Or did you dare to make his doing, what you know he was perfectly justified in doing, an affair of the police?"
"I came upon Guy Holland, at dead of night, engaged in robbing me, and I sent him from me with my blessing."
"Then where is he?"
"I know no more than this chair."
"Miss Bewicke, I called at your rooms this morning. I saw his walking-stick upon your table. When I asked how it came there, the woman who had opened the door said, in effect, that he had left it behind in his hurry to go away with you."
"The woman! What woman?"
"She said she was your companion."
"Casata? Louise Casata never said anything so monstrous."
"Not in so many words; but that was what she intended me to understand."
"You believed it? What a high opinion you appear to have of us! Guy must be worse even than I imagined, or you, his promised wife, would not judge him with such hard judgment."
"I did not believe it; but I did believe that you called in the police last night."
"I didn"t; I called in no one. I simply told him to go, and he went."
"You are laughing. You know where he is. I can see it in your face."
"Then you are indeed a seer."
"This morning, when he did not come, as he promised he would, and always has done, someone gave me this. What am I to think?"
Miss Broad handed Miss Bewicke the two typewritten lines, which that lady carefully regarded.
"Someone? Who was someone?"
"A little boy. I thought it was a message from Guy. By the time I found it wasn"t, he was gone. I don"t know who he was, nor from whom he came, if it wasn"t from you."
It certainly did not come from me. Miss Broad, I begin to find you amusing. I also begin to understand what it is Guy Holland perceives in you to like. You are more of a woman than I am; that is, there is in you more of the natural savage, which, to a man of his temperament, goes to make a woman."
"I want none of your praises."
"I"m not going to give you any, or compliments either. I doubt if you"re in a frame of mind to properly appreciate any sort of sleight-of-hand. Let me finish. I had an engagement for luncheon; as you have made me late for it, perhaps you will do me the honour of lunching with me here."
"No, thank you."
"Pardon me, you will."
"Excuse me, I won"t."
"We shall see."
Miss Bewicke touched the bell b.u.t.ton. Miss Broad eyed her with flaming cheeks.
"It"s no use your ordering anything to eat for me, because I sha"n"t touch it. You treat me as if I were a child. I"m not a child."
"My dear Miss Broad, we are both of us women--both of us; and there are senses in which women and children are synonyms. Mr Holland was once in love with me--he was, I a.s.sure you. He is now in love with you, which fact creates between us a bond of sympathy."
"I don"t see it."
"No? I do. You will. He appears to have got himself into, we will put it, a rather equivocal position. It is our bounden duty, as joint sympathisers, to get him out of it. We will discuss our bounden duty; but I never can discuss anything when I"m starving, which I am."
To the waiter who appeared Miss Bewicke gave orders for an immediate lunch for two. Miss Broad kept silence. The truth was, she was not finding Miss Bewicke altogether the sort of person she expected. That little lady went on,--